Danube Swabians

The Danube Swabians are a German-speaking population located in the countries along the Danube River valley, the descendants of Catholic and Lutheran Germans who were sent to settle lands once occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Many of them lived in Romania, Hungary, Serbia, and Croatia, border regions with the Ottoman Empire. Danube Swabians adopted the Hungarian practice of putting the surname first, and they have few names, usually naming their children after their grandparents or godparents. Female names include Anna, Barbara, Christina, Elisabeth, Katharina, Magdalena, Maria, Sophia, Theresia, and many two-name combinations thereof, while male names include Adam, Anton, Christian, Franz, Friedrich, Georg, Gottfried, Heinrich, Jakob, Johann, Konrad, Ludwig, Mathias, Michael, Nikolaus, Peter, Philipp, and Stefan. In 2017, there were 186,596 Swabians in Hungary, 36,884 in Romania, 4,064 in Serbia, and 2,965 in Croatia.